Don't be a Techretary.

Something I learned when I first became a TOSA is to not let people turn you into a secretary. Often in meetings I would be asked to make the Google Doc because “You can do it faster” or “You just know what to do.” While at first I didn’t mind, because I was apart of the meeting and the work needed to be done, it came to a point where my expertise wasn’t appreciated, but expected. Instead of being apart of the collaboration group, I was on the outside making docs and forms while others talked about content or pedagogy. I was trying to show people why the position was valuable; I was funded via LCAP at the time. However, what I now realize is by doing things for other people I may have been seen as valuable, but it wasn’t for the right reasons. Whatever our TOSA position is center around we can’t be the ‘doers.’ It’s an old adage but a good one, we need to teach people to fish.

So what do we do if people are asking us to organize inboxes, run data protocol on spreadsheet or install printers? That is a difficult question, one I don’t have the final answer to but here are some ideas to get you started.

• Close read your job description. While we all have the ‘other duties as assigned’ nonsense that’s one line out of let’s estimate 100 of actual duties. If we look at this from a math standpoint 1/100 versus 99/100, what will matter more your evaluation and boss?
• Speaking of your boss show him your annotated job description and have a conversation about your findings. There may be a district strategic plan that influences what aspects you need to focus on the most out of that 99/100 and your supervisor is the right person to help you figure that out.
• When asked to do something like the aforementioned, don’t actually do it for the requestor.
• If you’re in a face to face situation tell them the steps but make them do the pointing and clicking. This has been difficult for me personally, but whenever possible don’t point to the button on the screen and don’t move the mouse for the person. Give the person the opportunity to create their ‘tech muscle memory.’
• If you in a remote location send the requestor a screencast, Captivate or screenshot tutorial. It’s more than likely this request will come up again, so save your future self sometime and create a library of solutions. It’s also nice for people to have resources to look back to.
• Collaboration is key to combating ‘this is just another thing.’
• In my last district the Secondary TOSAs had the task of hosting professional learning events for their content but there weren’t enough days for us all to have separate events. What seemed like a problem became an opportunity for awesome. By working together we create a professional learning event centered on the new CA ELA/ELD standards that included implications for all subjects and was hosted using EdTech tools. In the process of creating this event we were able to learn from each other. I now know more about the ELA/ELD framework and they know more about how to use EdTech, it’s a win win.
• Get out of the office as much as possible. If people can’t find you, you can’t be a techretary.
• I miss students, so whenever I can get out of the office to interact I do. Also by being out of the office and seeing what is happening in the classroom it informs TOSA practice.
• If while at a site someone asks me to install a printer, as much as the teacher may not like it, I have to enforce the work order system of IT. I phrase it to teachers as ‘the work order is like a classroom management process you wouldn’t want someone disrupting yours, so I can’t do that to IT.’
• Being in classrooms is also a great way to show teachers what is possible. Recently we had some Chromebooks that weren’t enrolled in our domain. Instead of calling for reinforcements, we asked the teacher if we could borrow the class to enroll the devices. She didn’t think the students could do it, but we reassured her so she let us guest teach for about ten minutes. At the end of it all the devices were enrolled perfectly by the third graders, they felt empowered and the teacher saw a new capacity in her students.